


You Don't Have a Soul, You Are a Soul (You Have a Body)

by FeelingFredly



Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22011310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelingFredly/pseuds/FeelingFredly
Summary: Kisuke has a disregard for his own safety a mile wide and it's enough to drive Ichigo mad.  This time he finds the shopkeeper unconscious but not alone, and the woman with him has some very interesting things to say.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 4
Kudos: 264
Collections: UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4





	You Don't Have a Soul, You Are a Soul (You Have a Body)

**Author's Note:**

> Bingo Square Prompt #47--"You're cute when you're angry." "Then I'm about to be fucking adorable."

The wave of reiatsu was so strong that even Ichigo was shaken by it.

“What the hell was that?” He ran through the shōten looking for some sign of attack but found nothing. Tessai and the kids had left for a trip to Seireitei the night before, so he didn’t have to worry about them. Kisuke, on the other hand… well, he always worried about Kisuke.

“Kisuke!” he called as he ran up and down the back halls sticking his head in each doorway. There was no sign of him. “ _Kisuke_!!”

The blond hadn’t been at breakfast, but he often skipped the morning meal. Ichigo hadn’t worried about his absence as he made his onsen tamago, even if he missed their normal disagreement about whether natto was a food or not.

(Kisuke was convinced it was not. Proof that even a genius could be wrong.)

He slid to a stop in the kitchen and paused. The ring-pull for the hatch to the bunker was sitting upright. It hadn’t been that way last night when he’d finished his workout. He always double checked the handle so that Tessai wouldn’t trip over it when he was carrying things from the pantry. Someone else must’ve…

Before the thought had finished, the trapdoor was open and Ichigo was dropping into the dark.

And boy was it dark. The bunker was _never_ dark. It had an unrelenting fake sun that Ichigo had cursed a hundred times, but this… this was more disconcerting than a noon-time sun at one in the morning.

“Kisuke!” He whisper-yelled into the darkness, covering the yards between the entrance and where the training area usually started carefully even though until that moment he’d have sworn he could traverse them blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back. “I swear to God, Kisuke, you better be okay or I’m going to strangle you myself.”

Off to the right there was a sound, a musical little arpeggio of a laugh that sounded like it was made of chimes and razorblades.

 _Shit_.

The bunker was filled with strange reishi, so dense that Ichigo could feel it breaking over him like waves. Something had concentrated it all here, and if he had three guesses, they’d be Kisuke, Kisuke, and Kisuke.

The reishi tingled, he could even feel it in his lungs, and he marveled at the sensation. His human body was usually numb to this type of thing, the subtle energy signals drowned out by his own reiatsu. It was lucky that Ishida wasn’t there. He’d either be higher than a kite on all the ambient power, or out cold somewhere. The question was, was the wave that slammed through him earlier enough to knock Kisuke on his ass? 

“Who’s there?” he called out, moving closer to the training floor. “I’m not looking for trouble, I’m just trying to find my friend.”

The laugh echoed around him. “Clearly you don’t know Urahara-sama well enough if you are looking for him and not expecting to find trouble.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Ichigo reluctantly agreed, “I guess it’s more that I’m not looking for imported trouble. Domestic is fine.”

“Pfah,” a delicate sound of disgust, “ _domestic_. That is the problem, then, isn’t it?”

Ichigo took three more paces toward the training floor, towards that _voice_ , and finally stepped across the boundary of Tessai’s shielding kidō. The darkness on the other side was more like twilight, shifting and changing, only allowing him to see a little distance into the suddenly tree-filled area, but at least he wasn’t struggling against pitch dark anymore.

He still tripped over the body, though.

“Kisuke!” He dropped to his knees and gathered the unconscious man into his arms, shooting a cautious look around them. “Wake up, Kisuke," he whispered, "Come on. There's a crazy lady in your basement and I need to get you out of here.”

There was movement in the trees, and he lowered Kisuke gently back to the ground, prepared to fight the intruder.

“I don’t know who you are, or why you’re down here. I’m even willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not to blame for _Urahara-sama’s_ incapacitation, but you need to stay back.”

He stood between the blond and whatever it was in the trees, gritting his teeth in frustration. He was still in his human body—no weapon and very limited access to his reiatsu. He could use his badge, but he was Kisuke’s only protection and that would leave him unprotected for too long as he adjusted to changing form. He had no choice. He’d make do if he had to.

More movement, this time accompanied by a hiss of discontent. “I dare you to try to keep me from him.” The woman attached to the voice appeared, her movements so graceful it almost looked like she was floating across the ground. “You are the one that doesn’t belong here, _human_ ,” she almost spat the word. “I should rip your intestines out through your nose and wear them as necklaces as punishment for your impudence.”

Okay, clearly not human. Probably not Shinigami, since he didn’t recognize the voice. The intestine thing was almost hollow-levels of violent, so maybe an Arrancar? Were there Arrancar that he didn’t know? Probably. Could Kisuke have developed a relationship with one of them without Ichigo knowing? Also, probably. 

The admission sat heavier in his stomach than he wanted to admit. 

“Your questionable taste in jewelry aside, I live here and threatening me isn’t going to help the situation.”

The laugh was back, but the chimes were gone. Nothing but razorblades remained. “Yes. You’re Kurosaki Ichigo, Urahara-sama’s stray. He brought you in from the cold because your Quincy bitch of a mother was dead, and your Shinigami sire was too weak to protect you. You’re a whelp with sharp teeth to be trained as an attack dog and put down when there was no more need for you. You served your purpose. Now, you’re here playing house. Chasing after him. You are nothing but a burden, and the sooner you accept that, the better for everyone involved.”

Ichigo’s fingers were clenched so tightly he imagined he could hear the bones creak. Every word was an echo of thoughts that had ping-ponged around in his head at some point, but Kisuke had told him he was welcome. Told him he was wanted. And Kisuke didn’t lie to him anymore—about anything.

“If you think I’m capable of manipulating Urahara Kisuke into letting me stay against his will, then you don’t know him as well as you think you do, Miss…?”

Ichigo waited, braced, but she didn’t move. She just laughed again. “I know him better than you ever will, Kurosaki-san. And maybe you aren’t a burden now, but you will be. Is that what you want, human?”

She moved closer. Her hair shone like moonlight on spilled ink, the waves cascading over her shoulders and down her long, graceful back. She was tall—almost as tall as Kisuke—and while her lips were the darkest red, her skin was as pale and perfect as Kisuke’s as well. Black eyes stared at him across the training ground, her crimson robes leaving no trace of her passage, an oddly familiar sword hilt strapped to her back, as she floated towards him like a ghost. Like a... a _spirit_.

“ _Benihime_!” The name tore itself from him in a pained whisper. There was no way this could be, but the strange woman even _felt_ like Kisuke—strong and beautiful and clever and vicious. But how? And why was she so angry with him? _He loved Kisuke_. He’d do anything for him.

Her forward movement stopped, and she sniffed disparagingly. “It took you long enough. Urahara-sama told me you were smart, but I have yet to see proof of it.”

Ichigo shook his head to clear it. How could he see Kisuke’s zanpakuto spirit? And Kisuke said he was smart?

“If you are his Benihime, then why aren’t you helping him?” Ichigo waved his hand in the direction of the inert body at his feet.

Benihime shrugged one shoulder, a move Ichigo’d seen Kisuke make a thousand times, “If he isn’t strong enough to rise on his own, why should I help him? I serve no one weaker than I.”

Ichigo growled at her. “I have a fucking _hollow_ for a zanpakuto spirit, and even he would help me if I needed it.”

She leaned close to his face and hissed, “ _My_ master doesn’t need help. _My_ master is stronger than that. Stronger than _you_ , you clinging, puling _infant_.”

Rage flowed through him. “Okay, that's enough. I don't know what your problem is, but you don't have a _fucking clue_. I _know_ that Kisuke’s stronger than I am! He's proven it time and time again, but that doesn’t mean he has to fight alone! As long as I'm alive he will never have to _fight alone_.”

He turned his back on her, dropped to his knees beside the painfully still Kisuke, and wrapped his arms around him, trembling in fury. How dare she abandon Kisuke like this when he clearly needed help? He wanted to knock that smug look off her face, but he couldn’t strike her—she was Kisuke’s zanpakuto! Part of his soul! —but he didn’t trust himself to keep his cool if he had to keep looking at her.

“ _There's_ the spitfire I was promised." Benihime's voice behind him softened into just-mocking. "You’re cute when you’re angry.”

Ichigo snarled at her. “Then I’m about to be fucking adorable.”

He gritted his teeth as he ran through his mental triage checklist. There were no visible injuries, no cuts or bruises. He gently felt the long bones in Kisuke’s arms and legs—no evident breaks. He put a shaking hand on Kisuke’s face, something he’d dreamed of doing for months, and could feel no fever, nor chill of death. He was in a gigai, but it was as if it didn’t have enough reiryoku to power it. “I will only say this once: either help or get the hell away from him. _Now_.”

She moved, but Ichigo couldn’t tell where. Her reiatsu was being muffled by the rippling reishi around them.

“He did this himself, you know.” The words weren’t chastising, simply matter of fact. “I’m not certain about the details, but the process of forcing me to manifest on this plane used his reserved reiryoku. He’s suffering from reiatsu exhaustion. I know that the healers in the Fourth have kidō they use to transfer reiryoku to the injured, but since Tessai-san isn’t here and you have no skill in that department, you will simply have to wait for him to recover.”

Ichigo shifted the weight on his lap running through every possibility he could think of. Waiting was not at the top of his list. He knew the gigai required a base level of power to operate. Perhaps…

He reached into his pocket and removed his substitute Shinigami badge and pressed it carefully into Kisuke’s chest.

“Come on, Kisuke,” he whispered, hoping beyond hope that he was right, and that the man’s spirit form would require less energy to maintain. “Wake up. Come back to me. _Please_.”

The body in his lap became heavier, a truly dead weight, as Kisuke’s spirit body was ejected from it. It was a sensation Ichigo never wanted to experience again.

“Ah, Kurosaki-kun,” the shopkeeper was suddenly kneeling beside him, a long-fingered hand rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment, tired but otherwise whole, “I see that my calculations were a little off.”

Ichigo nodded, breathless with relief. _He was okay_. “It seems that way.”

Benihime moved towards them, “They were off in more ways than one, Urahara-sama.”

Kisuke tilted his head and looked at her over Ichigo’s shoulder. “How so? I see that the kidō shield for the training ground acted as a suitable extension for my inner world. The forest and the shrine are here. The twilight. You.” He shrugged. “What am I missing?”

Benihime looked at him fondly, like a parent with a particularly precocious child, _if_ the child was a trained assassin and happened to have enough reiatsu to level a small town by himself.

“Your kidō wasn’t strong enough because you only factored in manifesting a single fragment of soul. Mine was not the only one tied to your reiryoku. There was a second piece of soul willingly parted with, and it was in bringing _that_ piece into this realm along with me, that you overexerted yourself.”

Ichigo frowned at the blond, “But you only have one zanpakuto spirit. What other soul fragment could there be?”

Benihime gave Ichigo a mystic smile and suddenly there were twin flags of color high on Kisuke’s cheekbones. “He only has one sword spirit, yes. But he’s given another piece of his soul to the one that holds his heart.”

There was an almost palpable silence in the bunker, and then Benihime laughed. This time it carried no edge. Ichigo and Kisuke simply stared at one another.

“I knew the human world was going to be fun.” She clapped her hands like a giddy child. “I cannot wait to see what tomorrow will bring.”

Ichigo looked down at his hands and realized that he was still holding his badge. He pressed it into his own chest unsteadily, his body falling away to lie next to the abandoned gigai. He reached out and took Kisuke’s hand as he stood.

“Kurosaki-kun, you don’t need…” the blond started, but Ichigo shushed him and pulled him to his feet.

“I may owe your Benihime an apology,” he said, a wry twist of a smile on his face. “I wasn’t very polite, but in my defense, I was terrified of losing you.”

He pulled Kisuke closer, his arms slipping around his waist in a loose embrace.

“It will take more than this to take me from you, Kurosaki-kun.” He pressed their foreheads together. “Much more.”

“She said you didn’t need me.” Ichigo couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like a fever dream so he whispered so he wouldn’t wake himself. “She said that I would become a burden to you.” He gripped Kisuke’s waist even more tightly. “Promise me you will tell me if that becomes the case.”

The blond nodded and sighed. “I promise, but you should know, that wasn’t what she meant when she said I didn’t _need_ you. My princess often speaks in riddles and half-truths when it serves her purpose.”

Ichigo looked up at him, searching for an answer in his eyes. “What did she mean, then?”

Kisuke let out a breath. “She was teasing me. She knew I could hear you even though I couldn’t respond. You see, I told her once that I didn’t _need_ anyone to do what I had to do, but that I wanted…” he squeezed Ichigo’s hands, “that I _wanted_ you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole existence. She told me that if I truly valued you that much I should step forward and say it, because silence guaranteed failure, and only cowards accepted failure without a fight.”

“And do you still?” Ichigo swallowed past the lump in his throat, afraid to hear the answer, but still somehow desperate for it. “Want me, I mean?”

“More than I thought possible, Ichigo-kun,” he murmured into soft orange spikes, “and I think of seven impossible things before breakfast.”

Ichigo felt a wild laugh bubble to the surface and listened to Benihime’s laughter echo through the woods in return. He clutched Kisuke to his chest, reveling in the right to do so, and mentally thanked the zanpakuto spirit for giving them this chance.

Down the rabbit hole they would go.

Together.


End file.
